Bradley Manning's Sentence: 35 Years

Details here.

Particulars aside, the Obama administration may have succeeded in finding what many White House residents have long desired: a way to shut down whistleblowers. And our nation is the worse for it, again putting aside the particulars of Bradley Manning's case.

I spent some time thinking about how social and political change has been accomplished in my adult lifetime, and how Manning fits into the pattern. Very little has been accomplished to the benefit of our nation without premeditated civil disobedience on the part of determined citizens who refuse to be intimidated. Coward that I am, I have never "been to jail for justice" (the closest I've come is having been "escorted" by police away from the scene of a nonviolent Iraq War protest in the middle of Main Street), but most of my friends and political allies have been jailed at some point in their activist lives. For decades now, arguably much longer than that, civil disobedience has been part of our system, without which essential change would not happen. Likewise, leaks of information about illegal government actions, information held secret for the worst of purposes, have been utterly essential to the improvement of the worst aspects of our government. Civil disobedience and leaks are crucial to the improvement of the government in any free society; we can't do without them.

And yet Obama & Co. along with his DoJ wielding the antiquated Espionage Act, not to mention the police departments of many if not most large cities, not to mention other agents of government and a growing involvement of the military, are making their very best attempt to render the consequences of civil disobedience and leaks so unpleasant, so disruptive of a citizen's life, that few citizens will undertake it, in fear of those very consequences.

Believe me: whatever Obama and his henchmen may think, the nation is the worse for the loss of whistleblowers and nonviolent demonstrators. To turn the ACLU's "safe and free" saying on its head, we are now less safe... AND less free. Go ahead and chant "U-S-A... U-S-A..." all you want; the nation has suffered a devastating loss of all the elements that many of us treasured in the U-S-A. And this presidential administration, like the previous one, is very much to blame.

Freedom of speech as a corrective to governmental malfeasance may someday return to America. But it's going to be a long, hard road back...

Manning Verdict (Apparently Conviction) To Be Announced Today On An Historic Day That Is No Coincidence - UPDATED

Courtroom Sketch of Manning
by Clark Stoeckley
via Kevin Gosztola

Kevin Gosztola of FDL, present for most of Manning's two-month trial, will announce the details when the judge rules this afternoon. This link is to Gosztola's preface, backgrounder, setup, call it what you will. He begins by noting the historical significance of today's date chosen by the judge, clearly no coincidence:

A military judge is set to issue a verdict in the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier prosecuted for disclosing information to WikiLeaks, [today] in the early afternoon. The verdict will come on the same day that America passed its first whistleblower protection law.

The law passed by the Continental Congress on July 30, 1778, declared that it was the “duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other the inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by an officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge.”

This law emphasizes the crux of the matter: whistleblowing is a duty of everyone in military or civil service to the US. It is not discretionary; it is obligatory.

In the 1778 case, the man on whom the whistle was blown was powerful, and immediately engaged in retaliation against the whistleblower. Some things start early and never change; retaliation against whistleblowers is one of them. Unlike the early case, it is likely that retaliation against Manning, who reported some activities that are manifestly illegal, will be allowed to take place... with the active cooperation of the military system of justice. Given what has been reported to date, I am convinced that Manning's trial... from his year-long abusive detention with no opportunities to defend himself, through to the military judge's repeated rejection of defense's introduction of potentially exculpatory evidence... is a drumhead, a trial whose outcome is predetermined, in this case by no less than the President of the United States.

Here's Gosztola on Manning's actions:

Manning did not go to Congress with his information but had he gone to Congress it is a virtual guarantee that he would have lost his security clearance for trying to provide information to Congress that included evidence of torture and other war crimes. The world would never have seen the information he disclosed to WikiLeaks.

Not every one of the more than 700,000 documents he released contained evidence of a major crime, and yet a statement Manning read in court February 28 indicates his decisions to release certain sets of information were that of a classic whistleblower. Yet, he faces a potential sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of “aiding the enemy.”

Manning was categorized by prosecutors as "anarchist," "hacker" and "traitor." He will be convicted of every charge and sentenced to life without parole, that is, if the government doesn't renege on its promise not to seek the death penalty, which would not surprise me. Manning is being made an example of, indirectly by your man Barack Obama. Whistleblowing and leaking, both essential to journalism in pursuit of illegal government activity, will likely dwindle to nonexistence after Manning's verdict. And Manning may never see the light of day again.

It was a great country while it lasted...

UPDATE 7/30/2013 6:00pm EDT - Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge... "aiding the enemy" ... but convicted of 19 other charges, mostly under the ancient W.W. I-era Espionage Act, created in its own day specifically to harass, discredit and disable antiwar activists, and a point of contention thought to be at odds with the First Amendment... until now. Please read Kevin Gosztola's post What the Verdict in Bradley Manning’s Trial Means for Whistleblowers. This is a day in which the phrase "military justice" may well have become an oxymoron as surely as "military intelligence." As a nation we should be ashamed, not only of this result but of the deplorable actions of the court which brought it forth.